NASHVILLE — While the Columbus North boys rested its top seven runners, the Bull Dog girls ran without only three of their top seven in Saturday’s Brown County Sectional.
As a result, the North second-ranked girls were able to come away with their 24th consecutive sectional title, and the top-ranked boys saw their streak snapped at 12.
“The lucky thing about us is, we go about 10 deep with varsity runners, so we kind of decided to run three or four different ones today and three or four different ones at the regional next week because they’re so close together,” North girls coach Rick Sluder said.
The Bull Dogs scored 22 points. Brown County (65), Seymour (80), Columbus East (88) and Martinsville (129) also advanced to Saturday’s North Regional at Ceraland.
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Mackenzie Barnett won the girls race in 18 minutes, 49.17 seconds for 5,000 meters (3.1 miles) to lead the Bull Dog girls.
“I was happy about my race, but I expected more out of myself,” Barnett said. “I’m hoping to go a lot faster time the rest of the tournament season.”
North’s Brianna Newell finished second in 19:06.53. Katherine Rumsey and Abby Jacobi took fourth and fifth in 19:23.18 and 19:31/48, while Madisyn Perry was 10th (20:27.10), Aric Tong 12th (20:49.93) and Megan Saeger 14th (21:07.44).
“Mackenzie did wonderful up front today,” Sluder said. “Anytime you can be sectional champion, that’s awesome, and then Brianna Newell really ran a great last mile to catch the girl (Abby Fleetwood) from Brown County. Abby Jacobi and Katherine both ran incredible races. Their time gap behind our No. 1 and 2 was as good as it’s been all year.”
Fleetwood finished third in 19:20.36. Also for Brown County, Hadley Gradolf took sixth in 19:59.67, while Emelia Koester was 13th (20:49.93), Emma DeBord 18th (22:20.44) and Madalyn Purlee 25th (23:09.19).
Chloe Krueger led the Olympians with a seventh-place finish in 20:06.98. Laurel Knight took 16th in 21:53.69, while Carly Otte was 20th (22:42.90), Jordan Spurgeon 22nd (22:54.21) and Elizabeth Stevens 23rd (22:59.44).
“Our group ran really well together as a pack, and that kind of was our goal today,” East girls coach Jesse Shoaf said. “They stayed tight, especially our 3, 4 and 5. Chloe had a great race and Laurel, and then Jordan was kind of the one I gave the command to lead the group out, and she did. Elizabeth Stevens had a great race for us today, and our freshman, Carly Otte, did really well today. We just keep improving our times, so we were happy with our results.”
Meanwhile Seymour slipped past North 39-46 to win the boys meet. The Bull Dogs still advanced to regional, along with Martinsville (87), Brown County (99) and Brownstown Central (123).
“Last week was a big week for our top seven because we ran at Twilight (Valley Classic on the state finals course),” North boys coach Danny Fisher said. “We simulated that whole week basically like a state meet week, so it was a big emotional high. It’s a good week to let these guys rest and not focus on racing. They’re going to be racing the next three weeks pretty hard, and everybody is going to be shooting for them, so we wanted to give them a week off before we got into that.”
Sam Hobbeheydar finished fifth in 16:55.10 to lead the Bull Dogs. Kellen Hottell took eighth in 17:10.36, whi;e Clayton Guthrie was 10th (17:19.33), Jacob Strietelmier 11th (17:25.04), Will Russell 12th (17:26.24), Carson Kleinhelter 13th (17:27.98) and John Merritt 14th (17:38.42).
“It’s good for these sophomores and (senior) Carson Kleinhelter,” Fisher said. “Not very often they’re in this position where they have the pressure on them, and they have to perform. I was happy with how they gave full effort, and that’s all you can ask of them. I think I could have done a better job preparing them. They just got us in the middle part of the race, and we didn’t respond well to their moves, and that’s on me not preparing the boys to be ready for those kind of moves.”
Chase Austin led the Eagles with a third-place finish in 16:40.94. Rhett Silbaugh took 19th in 18:09.55, while Cord Smith and Cameron Fox were 27th and 28th in 18:44:11 and 18:51:08 and Waylon Patrick 31st in 18:58.24.
“I thought we ran a little bit better,” Brown County coach Rob Abraham said. “We knew Martinsville was going to be a team that we were going to have to run with. They pretty much killed us last weekend, so we made a little leeway in a smaller meet. Hopefully, we can continue to make improvements as we go throughout the state series.”
The East boys missed qualifying as a team by one spot, finishing sixth with 170 points, but did qualify three indivdiuals to regional. Tyler Hertle finished 22nd in 18:23.58, Mason Curry took 37th in 19:30.61 and Casey Bartholomew was 40th in 19:51.68.
Also for the Olympians, Derek Patchett finished 45th in 20:24.70, and Cayden Lynott was 47th in 20:31.72.
“I thought our guys went out and ran hard,” East boys coach Ryan Burke said. “They gave it their best shot. It was disappointing that we didn’t advance (as a team). We will look to get our guys that did advance in the best position to keep moving forward next week.”
Hauser advanced two boys and one girl to regional. Ryan Ault finished 21st in the boys race in 18:22.43 and Alex Bower took 41st in 19:54.41 to advance. The only other Jet boys runner, Colin Kistler, was 44th in 20:16.10.
Amanda Steward finished 39th in the girls race in 25:19.33 to lead Hauser to an eighth-place team finish. Addison Jones, Reiss Kistler and Tammy Essex took 46th, 47th and 48th in 27:26.62, 27:34.14 and 29:15.64, and Lexi Tallent was 58th in 37:12.18.
“I think times were a little slow today,” Hauser coach Ben Finke said. “I think we were a little sluggish and maybe just not all the way there. But placing-wise, I think we did better. I think they had hard races and good races.”
Trinity Lutheran’s lone runner, Abby Hildreth, finished 44th in the girls race in 27:10.63, missing the 10th and final individual qualifying spot by one place.
Edinburgh had four girls and three boys runners. For the girls, Chloe Greathouse finished 53rd in 33:12.29, while Briana Tomlin was 54th (22:4.27), Hannah Pile (33:47.13) and Alana Hobbs 57th (36:16.86). In the boys race, Noah Detling took 53rd in 22:07.70, while Parker Young was 56th (25:21.42) and Ethan Campbell 57th (44:11.03).
